Increased fuel economy is becoming increasingly important in all areas of transportation, driving the need for lighter weight designs with the associated difficulties in maintaining or even improving the strength and structural integrity of previous designs. Weight reduction is particularly important in vehicles for mass transportation such as trains and commercial airliners. To maintain, supplement and enhance the strength of light weight panels for flooring and sidewalls of commercial airliners, it is beneficial or even necessary that all components of the assembly contribute to the structural integrity and impact resistance of the final design. Thus, while decorative components used in the interior of an airliner cabin, such as decorative laminates, have typically performed exclusively or primarily an aesthetic role, it is increasingly important that they be designed to maintain, supplement or enhance the strength and durability of the panels and surfaces that they cover. The ability of the decorative laminate to increase strength and durability must be achieved while maintaining strict requirements for flame retardancy in the areas of heat release, smoke generation and emission of potentially harmful products on combustion.
One commercially available product, Aerfilm LHR from Schneller, Inc. is a low-heat-release, low-smoke and low-toxic-gas, engineered thin-film decorative laminate for covering flat and three-dimensional panels. It is relatively lightweight and economical, and provides superior texture retention and stain resistance. It has a typical areal density of 250 g/m2. Typical tear strength is 1.49 N in the machine direction of lamination and 1.65 N in the transverse direction. Typical tensile strength for Aerfilm LHR is 127 N/25 mm in direction of lamination and 124 N/25 mm in the transverse direction. Aerfilm LHR produces a 2 minute total heat release of 43.9 Kw·min/m2, peak heat release rate of 43.2 Kw/m2 and a Ds 4 min of 82.6 when measured according to the ABD0031 in the same manner as Example 1 of the present disclosure.
Another commercially available product, Aertrim LW from Schneller, Inc., is a low heat release, low smoke and low toxic gas decorative laminate that provides enhanced durability. The high stability and durability of this product is attributable to the fact that this product contains a glass reinforced backing layer. Therefore, this product can only maintain two-dimensional formability and is therefore used, for example, in relatively flat laminate panels. The glass backed layer also adds greater weight to the laminate.